The equivocal role of proximity dimensions on technological novelty

Abstract

Technological development is driven by the recombination of related technological components and is occasionally disrupted through the introduction of uncommon combinations. These novel combinations can result in radically different technologies with profound economic and societal impact. However, the mechanisms through which technological novelty is created are not well understood. This complicates policy making in its aim to influence technological novelty. To address this research gap, this study measures the influence of proximities between R&D project partners on two types of technological novelty: (1) structural novelty, which involves the combination of disparate technological components and (2) functional novelty, which involves the introduction of technologies new to the system. We develop a text-based approach for quantifying technological novelty by utilizing GloVe word vectors obtained from energy R&D project abstracts. The novelty measures are validated and regressed against proximity characteristics of the R&D projects derived from Boschma’s (2005) proximity framework. We found mixed results. Organizational proximity was found to have a negative effect on structural novelty for some technologies but a positive effect on functional novelty for energy efficiency projects. Technological and geographical proximity were found to be negatively associated with functional novelty for solar and wind energy technologies respectively. The remaining tested relationships were not significant. Despite these mixed results, our study highlights the value of using a text-based approach to measuring technological novelty. This offers a potentially valuable tool for policy makers in their efforts to ex ante detect technological novelty.